Advertisement
Published: February 22nd 2011
Week three is basically over, though it's really only the official second week that has passed. But anyway, to update you on what has been happening in my wonderful, eventful life here in London!
Week 2: Classes and internships started this week. I'm taking two classes as well as participating in an internship. My two classes are GST: Traveling Along the Thames and ENG: London Theatre. The GST class is basically a study on the history of the Thames and its significance now and back in the day. We meet on Tuesday at the classroom, but on Thursdays we meet somewhere else, either along the river or at a museum. It's been an interesting class so far... The London Theatre class is the class I am SUPER EXCITED FOR! We are going to see eight different plays, most of which I haven't heard of. The three that I remember off the top of my head are: As You Like It, Warhorse, and Frankenstein. Unfortunately we are not going to any musicals, but it's ok, I have my list of ones I want to see and now just have to find cheap tickets. I actually found £15 tickets for Legally
Blonde the Musical and £16.25 for Les Miserables. Other plays I want to see are Wicked, Chicago, Billy Elliot, and possibly the Lion King. Hopefully I will be able to get to most of them...HOWEVER, I have just found out that Much Ado About Nothing, which is my FAVORITE Shakespeare play opens on May 16th, so Mom, we might have to come back a day early to London to go to this!
For my internship, I can't talk too much about it here due to confidentiality of the clients, but in general, it's going great now! At first it was a lot of administrative work like copying and making a few phone calls. The phone calls are interesting because for the first day or two I had a really hard time understanding the accents, especially the guy from Scotland. A lot of the mornings are very slow going as people get in at random times and the mornings are usually spent trying to gather information so other tasks can be finished.
When it comes to exploring London, I did a good amount of that this week. After classes and my internship, and on the weekends, I like just
going out and walking around. During the second week I decided to go to Buckingham Palace and then try to get up to Kensington. Well, I got off at the wrong spot on the Tube and ended up walking from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace. I walked along St. James Park until I hit Buckingham, and even though it was a dreary day (though the sun did peak out a little) it was still really beautiful, or so i thought.
Buckingham was interesting. I was expecting it to be a little bigger, but it was still awesome to see! I also thought the guards were supposed to be in red, but they were in grey/black. There was a good amount of construction going on with the monument of Queen Victoria, so taking pictures without having the construction in them was difficult. I want/need to go back because I didn't actually get any pictures of me with Buckingham in the background, which I would like at least one.
After Buckingham I just picked a direction and started walking. I walked along its side towards Victoria Station and found a hole in the wall place to pick up some more
postcards, which I really need to finish writing some and get them out this week...Anyway, Victoria Station is crazy busy. Between the people taking the train, the tube, and the buses....public transportation is amazing here! I'm going to miss it soooo much when I go back to the States. But good lord do the British people love their sandwich shops. There were probably close to twenty within the three to four blocks from Buckingham to Victoria.
From Victoria I got on the Tube and went towards Kensington. Kensington has about four to five stops on the Tube, so I went to High Street...no particular reason. Unfortunately, once I got off it started to rain some and my umbrella is broken and i'm cheap and don't feel like buying another one...The money could be better spent on travel and trinkets. However, I did manage to walk around some (though no pictures here) and found a Wholes Foods! THEY HAD AMERICAN CHIPS AND SALSA!!!! I was sooooo excited!
On Saturday of week two we made our way to Portobello Market, which was amazing and busy. There were so many fruit stands and different ethnic foods in the market as well
as antiques, clothes, and little trinkets. I thoroughly enjoyed the stands that were selling CDs, vinyls, and cassettes as their choice in music was amazing from the Beatles to Janet Jackson to Katy Perry. I ended up buying two really nice scarfs for £2 each.
Oh, and the Elephant Parade picture...after Portobello we went back towards Oxford St to try to find Primark, a cheap but nice clothing store...it was overwhelmingly busy. There were so many people that we decided to go back another time. But there was this cute little elephant statue that was across the street (next to KFC). It was apparently part of the elephant parade a few years ago (don't really remember when it was...)
So that's Week 2!
Week 3 Week three was more classes and more internships. We watched Shakespeare in Love in the Theatre class...SUCH AN AMAZING MOVIE!!! In the Thames class we ended up going to the Museum of London which was pretty cool, but I'm not a big museum person...I like going to the actual places and seeing what is left.
Just a note on the internship progression: I've been given more responsibilities, so it's
all good on this front!
Friday was the eventful day. My flatmates and I went to Bath for the day. I really wanted to get to Stonehenge from there, but it didn't happen. BUT, Bath was still amazing. Half of the group left at 8am while the other half (with me in it) left at 9:30. The difference was when we bought the tickets. The times were cheaper at different points in the ticket buying and we all went with the cheaper tickets. So, getting there at 12:30/1 was a little bit of a bummer, but I had packed a lunch/dinner so I was good to go.
We went first to the Jane Austen Museum of Bath, which commemorates her time spent in Bath. Two of her novels focus heavily on Bath, but I haven't read those two. I of course had to buy an "I Love Darcy" sticker. It was really interesting though because it talked a lot about her family and society at the time.
From the Jane Austen Museum, we headed over to the Roman Baths. Though it was a little pricey to get in, it was completely worth it! They gave you a
free audio tour which was helpful. The history and the architecture kept me in awe 99% of the time. The other 1% was a feeling of annoyance towards the school group that was there and was obnoxiously loud. I would love the chance to go into the baths, sit on the side and just read a book. Between the awe in how they built the baths, the information on the temples that were in the baths (and the curses that were left with the Goddess Minerva), and the waterways and how they drained the bath...it was hard not to want to bounce up and down in glee (or burst into song like the show).
After the Baths, some of the group wanted to go get dinner, but Mary Kate and I decided to forgo that and go into the Bath Abbey. It was beautiful, even though we only got to be in there for about 10 minutes before they closed. It was still amazing, though I didn't get to look much into the history of the Abbey. I'll have to do that at some point when I have free time...whenever that is...
So, Mary Kate and I went
to meet up with the rest at the pub, but from there I decided to go exploring more. I had about 45 minutes to kill so I walked up to the Royal Crescent and the Circus. Unfortunately, since it was dark getting good pictures was difficult, but I tried my best! It was amazing to see, especially as these buildings and such have been there for a long time (I think). Also, if I remember correctly, Johnny Depp lived or lives in one of the places in the Royal Crescent. From there, trying to get back to the bus station before I was left...I kind of got lost. I knew the general direction....but that was it. Everything looks different in the dark! I got to the station about 10 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave...luckily it was delayed and hadn't even showed up yet. We didn't get back to London until about 9:30/10, but we passed by this giant Tesco...which I really want to find again and go to! I also made a list of places I still want to try to see...unfortunately it's pretty lengthy...
So that's basically week three in a nut shell. Like before,
if you want to ever skype to hear more about something, just call me: jacqueline.e.higgins
Enjoy all the pictures in this post as well!
Cheers!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.123s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0553s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
